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Comment by jrgifford | Hacker News Reader

As someone who is going through the process of building a van to live in... this is a terrible resource. Better ones are:

- Almost anything on https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/

- http://www.alwaystheroad.com/conversion-ebook/

- http://www.sprinter-rv.com/sprinter-rv-conversion-sourcebook...

- http://vandwellers.org/

- https://www.campervanlife.com/

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From memory, reading about this, the guy built out the van (for $12k) and then built the Vanual site with proposed Ryobi sponsorship. He pitched it to Ryobi and they essentially paid $10-12k. You'll see the "powered by" graphics and tool promos throughout the site.

Edit:

On Ryobi: "Good question. They pretty much covered the entire cost of the project. But the van and entire site was done before they agreed. Pretty big risk for the amount of time it involved."

"Nope haha. I finished the site and mocked it up as if they were already the sponsor and sent it over in a cold email. Guess they like what they saw."

Moral of the story is though, do it then ask. Much easier for both sides in the end.

Correct. Pitch a plan to Ryobi and all their marketing team would see is uncertainty and months of committee work to organise something like this. Show them a product ready to go, and they don't have to assume the worst of your ability or guess at what it might look like. I think the Vanual itself is a bit fluffy, but as a scheme by the owner, it's great.

Thanks for the links!

I don’t yet know enough to evaluate the quality of the instruction here. Why do you think this is a terrible resource?

I don't know that it's a terrible resource, I actually think it has a nice layout and has the right type of information, it could just use more breadth.

It offers one specific method for each area which you can see on alot of blogs, etc. The approach in paricular (At least for electrical) is also pretty basic and rough.

For example - the electrical buildout basically just drills a hole in and epoxied into your roof. As opposed to something like a cable box w/ waterproof connectors.

I think it's a great start and would love to see more depth and also a few options like: "Want to power alot of stuff? 400w of panels and 2 deep cycle batteries" vs. "Just need to power a cell phone?" etc.

Here's a great guide for the electrical side that I have been working off of for our van: https://gnomadhome.com/van-build-solar-electrical-wiring/

And here's a nice overview which would be good to have for n00bs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k9qlZM1ars

Just glancing through the sight it seems like some things like his insulation strategy are a bit poorly though out.

Google around a bit on you'll see there is a lot of debate on how to deal with condensation to prevent rusting out the metal of your van. It isn't clear if he's intending his system to deal with this by creating a vapor barrier with all that spray foam or if he's just going to end up with a bunch of condensation trapped in the space between the foam and the metal leading to rust.

And reflextix isn't particularly useful between two layers where it isn't exposed to radiant heat to reflect so I think he just wasted a bunch of money sticking it under the foam.

You're welcome!

Personal experience outside of van building: His insulation instructions are pretty suspect with even a basic understanding of how insulation works. Electrical is done in a way that works, but will make modifying your rig in the future very difficult.

Personal experience on van building: I'm on my 3rd iteration in 6 months of building. This is because as I build it out and try to live in it, I realized that certain things have to change for comfort/safety/ease of use. It's never really done, you're constantly tweaking things.

If you build it out according to the Vanual, you probably won't die/freeze to death/etc. But it might not a great existence (e.g. comfortable or enjoyable).

There is also tiny ebook called The Tiniest Mansion written by guy who used to live in RV for couple of years. It costs few dollars and it is more like introductory type of reading, but it is not that bad (although few years old now).

I read it when I was considering living in RV myself, that was before vanlife boom so there was not much information available back then.

I agree. "Manual" is a little generous. Especially for solar there are some much better resources if you step up to the RV world: https://therecklesschoice.com/2016/04/29/diy-rv-solar/ or https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/

Here is another:

    https://www.youtube.com/user/nutnfancy/search?query=van

Fair warning: that guy is a long way from Valley Values, but he knows what he's talking about and how to convey that knowledge as he travels throughout the western US.

Are we really at a point where you need to put a warning on a post just because the guy likes hunting ?

It’s Signaling, also a “Valley Value”. I guess, ‘cuz I don’t even pretend to know what the hell thats supposed to mean.

Do you know of any good resources for doing this in Europe?

Here's one:

http://vandogtraveller.com/

ebook, ebook, ebook... Remember when the internet didn't suck? (that subreddit community rocks though)

What's the problem? It costs 20 USD and its a PDF. No DRM. You instantly get the book. No trees were harmed during the printing.

I was actually surprised to see photos of books on The Vanual website. It looked so clean and small, and then he owns books. Doesn't make sense to me. My e-reader works for weeks, and it can contain thousands of books.

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